BiedermeierThe history, art and furniture
of Biedermeier
Article added on March 5, 2007

The exhibition
Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity was originally conceived at the
Milwaukee Art Museum and then enthusiastically embraced by the directors of
the Albertina and the Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, who have published
widely on Biedermeier topics. Hans Ottomeyer has already published the two
main theses of the exhibition in his 1980s-book Biedermeiers Glück und Ende. Die gestörte Idylle 1815-1848.

The catalogue and exhibition present some 400 art works, ranging from
paintings, drawings, furniture and decorative objects to clothing. The works
of art were made in Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Denmark.

The basic characteristics of Biedermeier became apparent even before 1800,
and up until around 1830 it continued to develop through simplification, the
natural beauty of materials and the clarity of form. Examples of Biedermeier
can be found as late as the 1860s.

In the catalogue
Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity, Laurie Winters explains that in
the 20th century, with two notable exceptions, Biedermeier has largely been
associated with the period of the "restoration" following the Napoleonic
Wars starting in 1815 and ending with the death of the Austrian Emperor Franz I
in 1835 or with the outbreak of revolution in 1848.

Biedermeier has also largely been interpreted as a middle-class art made
quickly and cheaply with middle-class interests in mind. Biedermeier was
considered the art and period of the emerging bourgeoisie, a reflection of
bourgeois modesty in taste after the Napoleonic Wars in the exhausted
postwar economies.

According to Laurie Winters, the catalogue and exhibition
Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity take the unconventional perspective
of the aesthetics to explain Biedermeier, which is "identified as a term for
an artistic era characterized by an emphasis on functionality and natural
beauty... In its pure form, Biedermeier is characterized by an overall
abstraction and geometry, brilliant color, and a lack of superficial
ornamentation."

The exhibition and catalogue exclude exclude the many revivalist and
historical forms of design and style that developed parallel to Biedermeier,
as well formal, backward-looking forms such as the ornamental antique, the
Empire style, a literature-based Romanticism, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance
and neo-Baroque styles.

The first of the two major theses of the exhibition and catalogue is to
demonstrate the startling affinities of Biedermeier with designs of the 20th
century, but without discussing its anticipation of modernity in detail.
Some exhibits foreshadow not only works by the Wiener Werkstätte, but even
by the Bauhaus. The second
major thesis is that Biedermeier was not a bourgeois invention, but an
achievement of the nobility and the courts, especially the Imperial court in Vienna.

The book and exhibition further illustrate the interconnections among the
major cities of Central and Northern Europe following the Congress of
Vienna, emphasizing the participation of these cities in a common culture.
Laurie Winters explains that artistic training at public drawing schools and
the extensive travels of many artists contributed to an international style
and culture.

With the restoration of traditional hegemonies after 1815, Emperor Franz I
of Austria resumed the leadership of the Germanic states, ranging from the
powerful kingdom of Prussia to city-states such as Frankfurt am Main,
Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck.

The ruling federal body or diet met in Frankfurt am Main and functioned as a
sort of permanent congress of ambassadors. England, Holland and Denmark were
represented because they controlled Hanover, Luxemburg and Holstein
respectively.

From as early as the late 1790s, a lively cultural exchange took place
between artists located on the north and south shores of the western end of
the Baltic Sea. The existing links between Denmark and the German states
were strengthened.

A cultural exchange took place between Vienna, Berlin and Copenhagen. The
first art academy in Northern Europe was established in Copenhagen in 1738,
offering free classes to students from Dresden and Berlin too. German
artists such as Caspar David Friedrich and Georg Friedrich Kersting were
attracted. Around 1830, German was spoken as much as Danish in the
academy in Copenhagen. The exchange was mutual, and Danish artists studied
and worked in Berlin, Dresden and Munich.

Berlin and Vienna were important artistic centers. Berlin was the capital of
Prussia and, behind Vienna, the second largest city in the German
Confederation. The Berlin University, founded in 1810, attracted some of
continental Europe's most brilliant minds.

Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire, was the most important city of
the German-speaking world. It was the artistic center of the Habsburg
Empire, hosting its vast and rich collections. Its fine arts academies
attracted students from all over Europe. Many artists traveled through
Vienna to Rome where they convened with the Nazarenes, Joseph Anton Koch and
the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.

The term "Biedermeier" was coined much later, around 1855-57 and is both nostalgic and
critical in nature. The physician Adolf Kussmaul and the lawyer Ludwig
Eichrodt created the fictional character Weiland Gottlieb Biedermeier, a
recently deceased schoolteacher from Swabia, a common man with an uneventful
life, as a parody for the bourgeois readers of the Munich satirical weekly
Fliegende Blätter (Flying Papers). Only from the 1890s onwards,
the term Biedermeier was used to describe the artistic and cultural period
preceding the revolution of 1848 in a naive and nostalgic way, biased by the
echo of the Fliegende Blätter.

A new thinking on the role of the bourgeoisie in the Biedermeier period came
as late as 1987 by Christian Witt-Dörring in his essay on furniture. It was
followed by the 1987 landmark exhibition Biedermeiers Glück und Ende. Die gestörte Idylle 1815-1848 by Hans
Ottomeyer at the Münchner Stadtmuseum, devoted entirely to the decorative
arts. Laurie Winters describes it as a "seminal exhibition", a term by many
reviewers also used for the 2007 exhibition at the Albertina in Vienna.
Winters asserts that "Ottomeyer, like Witt-Dörring, defined an entirely new
way of thinking about the Biedermeier period."

"Witt-Dörring and Ottomeyer, working independently of each other in
Vienna and Munich, both refuted the well-entrenched notion that Biedermeier
art was made cheaply and quickly for the middle classes." On the contrary,
their research proved that the best and simplest examples of Biedermeier
furniture were commissioned for the courts and the aristocracy.

In their 1993 exhibition Wiener Biedermeier: Malerei zwischen Wiener
Kongress und Revolution, Albrecht Schröder and Gerbert Frodl removed the
pejorative taint associated with Biedermeier paintings. Painters such as
Erasmus von Engert and Franz Ebyl were given new prominence among the
leading artists of the early 19th century.

According to Laurie Winters, the publication The World of Biedermeier
by Karl Kemp, Linda Chase and Lois Lammerhuber (get the 2001 book from
Amazon.com or
Amazon.co.uk) is the most important recent contribution to the study of
Biedermeier furniture and decorative arts, encouraging "fresh perspectives
and connection with the art of the early twentieth century."

The exhibition and catalogue
Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity take the research of Hans
Ottomeyer and Christian Witt-Dörring as the starting point. The aesthetics
are used to reassess the Biedermeier period and its arts.
Biedermeier is interpreted as "a highly cultivated and refined quest for
simplicity and purity of form that has its roots in the late eighteenth
century."

Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity. Hatje Cantz, September 2006, 400
p. Get the English edition from
Amazon.com,
Amazon.de
or
Amazon.co.uk. Deutsche Ausgabe bestellen bei
Amazon.de.
The Albertina is an excellent choice of location for the exhibition since the
Viennese furniture makers Danhauser decorated the Albertina in the then new
Biedermeier style in 1822.